Archive for December, 2009
Dear Ignatius, Look What You Started
I was reminded in my reading recently of how fast we can meander from the clear teaching of Scripture – even with the best of intentions. I was reading about one of the apostolic fathers in church history. That’s the title usually given to the church leaders of the early second century – those whose lives either overlapped the lives of the last apostles and were directly influenced by them, or were close associates with someone who knew an apostle first hand. One such apostolic father was Ignatius of Antioch.
Ignatius was an elder (Bishop) in the church at Antioch in the early 2nd century. He had a passion for unity in the church and he wrote on the subject often. However, in his zeal for unity, he began making an unbiblical distinction between elders and bishops and identified them as two distinct and separate roles within the church. In his zeal to preserve unity, he Read the rest of this entry »
